Since the news broke last week regarding Facebook's acquisition of Oculus VR in a $2 billion deal, many have been waiting to hear from creator of Doom and Oculus CTO John Carmack, concerning his opinions on the matter. Carmack chose to voice his views regarding the acquisition in a response to a blog post by US chiptune rock band Anamanaguchi member Peter Berkman, who criticised the deal and stated that today "companies exist and operate only to be acquired."
Disagreeing with the criticisms voiced by Berkman, mainly accusing Oculus for abandoning its early supporters, Carmack stated that "there is a case to be made for being like Valve, and trying to build a new VR ecosystem like Steam from the ground up. This is probably what most of the passionate fans wanted to see." He went on "The difference is that, for years, the industry thought Valve was nuts, and they had the field to themselves. Valve deserves all their success for having the vision and perseverance to see it through to the current state."
Carmack suggested that VR is set to become an industry technology over which "titans" are going to fight over. "The real questions were how deeply to parent, and with who," he said. This makes it clear that in his opinion, Oculus is still headed in the right direction as it was inevitable that one of these large corporations would make a move into VR and battling against them just didn't make sense.
Carmack went on to say that he "wasn't expecting Facebook (or this soon)" and admitted that he "could think of other companies that would have more obvious synergies." However, he does have reasons to believe that Facebook "get the Big Picture" as he sees it, "and will be a powerful force towards making it happen." Carmack also reasoned that "You don't make a commitment like they just did on a whim."
Interestingly Carmack concluded his comment by informing readers that he "wasn't personally involved in any of the negotiations," concerning the sale of Oculus VR to Facebook. Despite it not being a billionaire's whim, the whole deal happened very suddenly, it sounds; "I spent an afternoon talking technology with Mark Zuckerberg, and the next week I find out that he bought Oculus."
